tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30734913397555437562017-08-15T19:21:25.481-05:00sueño contigoI will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams!Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.comBlogger182125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-47192248322346064262011-01-03T15:10:00.000-06:002011-01-03T15:10:00.433-06:00A New WebsiteI know its been a long time since I've written anything here, but I'm working on a new project that I'd like you guys to know about. Its a kind of social network, but a small more personal one rife with features and functionality, which I hope an online community will one day call home. The ideals that I hope it will be based on are quite similar to what I know sueno contigo's to be. I want it to be a place for dialogue on a range of issues that are important and pertinent to our lives, whether they are global or immediately personal. I want it to be a place where people can share the parts of themselves they find the most important. In most day to day circumstances we don't get the chance to share what matters to us the most, what we really love and enjoy, and what we pour our time and efforts into. I want it to be a place where every member feels they've gained or learned something from others they wouldn't have on their own.<br /><br />Right now the site is still in development. If anyone here is interested on working on it with me, I'd be happy to partner with you and include you as an administrator of the site. Otherwise, right now we need to fill the site with quality content and dialogue, so once we start promoting the site and showing it to new people they'll see what we're all about and know that there's already an active community forming. If you'd like to sign in and post/upload some material, I'd greatly appreciate it, or even if you'd like me to send you an email once the site is fully launched and operational I'd be happy to do that. You could even copy & paste some old sueno contigo entries to the blog section if you'd like. <a href="http://grou.ps/smokering/">Here's the site, I hope you enjoy it.</a>Blase Masseranthttps://plus.google.com/113893950861555128192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-38079585538919376162010-12-21T02:39:00.000-06:002010-12-21T02:39:36.935-06:00Eclipse EclipsedI've been out to my extended backyard several times this break: first alone, in the afternoon; then with Alex, at sunset; then finally tonight, at 1.&nbsp; It seemed inappropriate to allow the solstice to go by unrecognized, but what got me out there was the promise of a lunar eclipse.&nbsp; Of course, I knew there would be no lunar eclipse or even a single star, given the thick gray blanket of clouds keeping the Earth's warmth in and the cold of the Universe out.&nbsp; I'll admit, then, that what really rousted me from at 1 this morning was my reading material: Gordon Hempton's One Square Inch of Silence.&nbsp; Or rather, the memory that book returned me to of the remarkable impression of meeting the man himself, and hearing him tell much of the beginning of the book in person.<br /><br />Hastily bundled and out the door, the fear of nighttime brings me to a standstill as soon as I leave the parking lot.&nbsp; It'd been an unfortunate while since I'd been out this late, this alone.&nbsp; This place is quite a different place with the visage and psychology of late night on the solstice.&nbsp; Everything is bright, since the lens of pollution from Cass City is endlessly reflected among the clouds and the snow.&nbsp; But the light is wrong, brings no comfort, carries no color.&nbsp;<br /><br />Getting further away from home, into the field, the first stark trees hit my peripheral vision and brittle stalks grab my ankles.&nbsp; Freeze.&nbsp; My heart imagines it's helping, preparing me for a tither.&nbsp; I stop, and I listen: a traditional, time-tested and time-honored (there is no way to convey the nature of what TIME means in those phrases) method for sounding out danger.&nbsp; And after all, this is why I am hear: to teach myself, or just allow myself to listen.&nbsp; There is nothing; Seeger Street to the far West rumbles like a strong gust of wind.&nbsp; The true wind is imperceptible now.&nbsp;<br /><br />More steps forward.&nbsp; There is a new horizon in the prarie now: A and E and B and now a foot of snow and a crusty shield on top.&nbsp; Every step breaks the ice, ruins the relief, and leaves my indelible mark on tonight's winter.&nbsp; For the same reason, the field is now quite a lot more alive than ever it was before: my previous walks occurred before the snow and as it first fell.&nbsp; Now I cannot go more than three feet without meeting a deer or what I take to be a rabbit who passed through the place recently.&nbsp; The deer leave deep but very constricted holes; what I take for a rabbit, a shallow, solid stripe punctuated by small paws.&nbsp; I myself leave gaping wounds in the shell, a foot long and as deep.&nbsp; I am literally crashing through the place.&nbsp; Far less rude is my trespass, however, than that of the snowmobile.&nbsp; <br /><br />A bird, to the left.&nbsp; At this time of night?&nbsp; Odd.&nbsp; I stop to listen.&nbsp; Nothing, and after a time, I resume, crashing towards the forest.&nbsp; My fear is gone, but as I reach the forest and an adopted tree stand, it returns: the forest provides the antidote for the sickly glow of clouds and field.&nbsp; It consumes the light, in a sense, and its visage is appropriate for such a fiend: stark, angular claws line the horizon, and towards the ground all sense disappears in a foggy haze.&nbsp; I dare not enter at night (the undergrowth is unmanageable, and the ground is speckled with puddles I could easily end up in).&nbsp; The bird again - and now some hooligans, enjoying . . . a pond?&nbsp; Perhaps not.&nbsp; I climb the tree stand, sweep off the snow and acknowledge the ice, and begin to listen for that bird. . . I hear something, turn swiftly to the left, and hear it - shit.&nbsp; The "bird" is a high-pitched whistle something in my head does very faintly every time I turn it swiftly to the left.&nbsp; I do so several times to confirm the hypothesis.<br /><br />Then I do hear a bird - a brusque call from an owl in the forest.&nbsp; To whom is that owl communicating, and what does it wish to say?&nbsp; Listening to the land seems to be much like listening to music, though I have of course much more experience deciphering the latter.&nbsp; In both, however, the message and the medium are both in foreign tongues - what you hear in natural silence and in a piece of music are both intuitively meaningful, but the language of their meanings remains inscrutable even once you've deciphered the language of their symbology.&nbsp; In both cases, the languages are quite real, despite what little credit for existence they have been given by arrogant people.&nbsp; It is particularly incredible that we are now realizing (or returning to know) the extent to which acoustic communication is crucial in ecosystems, not only among species but between them.&nbsp;<br /><br />I sit on my hands to keep the ice on the treestand from melting through to my ass.&nbsp; This works, but my hands are cold.&nbsp; I hear nothing after not waiting long enough to hear it, and head home.&nbsp; I follow a snowmobile trail to the corn field that, unbeknownst to me, has always ran from the forest all the way back to my house, perhaps 1500 ft.&nbsp; I find the high edge of a furrow and balance-beam my way home.&nbsp;Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-49657742622673051782010-03-17T21:07:00.001-06:002010-03-17T21:19:14.940-06:00Fake Freshman Studies CurriculaHey everyone,<br /><br />Now that we're finally done with real Freshman Studies, I thought it would be an interesting idea to see what some of us might do if we were given the chance to design Freshman Studies curricula ourselves.&nbsp; The works you pick should be things that aren't already on the <a href="http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/freshman_studies/lists/">Freshman Studies list,</a> they should be as diverse as the official list, but not necessarily in the same way.&nbsp; You should pick things not just because you like them or would want to share them with students, but because they'd actually teach students something widely applicable.&nbsp; The "message" or "teaching" students are supposed to get from your work should be suitably non-traditional.&nbsp; You should definitely flaunt the guidelines any legitimate institution would impose, and you should by all means include joke entries.&nbsp; You are encouraged to give your reasoning for including the works you did, but don't feel obliged to.&nbsp; These things are generally obvious anyway; unless people are unfamiliar with the works (and hopefully we are - if not, you'ren't being creative and esoteric enough!).<br /><br />My list:<br />Essays 1-3 of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatism-William-James/dp/145152305X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1268881704&amp;sr=8-3">Pragmatism</a>, by William James - James provides the most helpful and basic values for philosophical discourse out there.&nbsp; Should be good fodder for discussion itself, as well.<br />&nbsp; <br /><a href="http://plagiarist.com/poetry/433/">Select</a> <a href="http://plagiarist.com/poetry/816/">poems</a> by Billy Collins - Accessible poetry about <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5772047140524529781#"> interesting</a> things. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1268881657199"><br /></a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Loused-Comatorium-Mars-Volta/dp/B00009V7T2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=music&amp;qid=1268882331&amp;sr=8-1-catcorr">Deloused in the Comatorium</a>, by the Mars Volta - Very talented musicians who create really innovative art by combining many traditions and idioms.&nbsp; Deals with serious metaphysical and social issues in a very creative and genuine way.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0143036556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1268882037&amp;sr=1-1">Collapse</a>, by Jared Diamond - Shows with vivid, clear, scientific metaphor the way humanity is about to kill itself.&nbsp; Vital knowledge for everyone to possess, when they will soon be putting themselves in positions of power and influence in society.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Flatland-Illustrated-Edwin-Abbot/dp/1449548660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1268882056&amp;sr=1-1">Flatland</a>, by Edwin A. Abbott - Introduces multi-dimensionality to students who (unless they've had decent educations like most of my fellow Lawrentians did) have never experienced it before.&nbsp; It's also extremely well-written and a hell of a lot of fun. <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Amelie-Audrey-Tautou/dp/B0000640VO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=dvd&amp;qid=1268882305&amp;sr=8-1">Amelie</a> - Beautiful and very creative exploration of important themes in social relationships and personal life.&nbsp; <br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/City-Dreaming-Books-Walter-Moers/dp/1590201116/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1268882092&amp;sr=1-1">The City of Dreaming Books</a>, by Walter Moers - Exemplary playfulness with language and with a whole slew of creative ideas - maybe not the most traditional ideas for "academic discourse."&nbsp; Also the most fun, and very well written.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.eskimo.com/%7Ejessamyn/barth/index.html">Select stories</a> by Donald Barthelme - Very droll, funny post-modern fiction, in the style of Borges and Kafka.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bata-Ketu-Michael-Spiro/dp/B000005BAI">Bata Ketu</a>, by Michael Spiro et al - Combines a variety of world music traditions to make a very catchy and poppy album without sacrificing authenticity.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Arctic-Dreams-Barry-Lopez/dp/0375727485/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1268882283&amp;sr=8-1">Arctic Dreams</a>, by Barry Lopez - Gives the most beautiful sense of the vastness and complexity of the world.&nbsp; This is a vital attitude for college students and everyone else to have.&nbsp; <br /><br />I've tried to only pick things that are models of aesthetic style (primarily in writing), present obvious, important "messages," and are a LOT of fun.<br /><br />Love,<br />AdamAdamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-56349418380172853202010-02-20T19:46:00.002-06:002010-02-21T16:43:41.449-06:00Evan Bayh Op-Ed<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/opinion/21bayh.html?pagewanted=1&amp;hp">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/opinion/21bayh.html?pagewanted=1&amp;hp</a><br /><br />I think he's absolutely right.Sylviehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05260968591323827490noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-34447833834814973952010-01-24T14:49:00.002-06:002010-01-24T14:49:31.567-06:00“The bear's melancholy wandering, for example, is underscored in a Polar Eskimo story about a bear who falls in love ith a young married woman. He cautions her never to tell her husband of their meetings because her husband will surely try to kill him. But she takes pity on her husband's failures in hunting bears and tells him where her lover lives. Far away, the bear hears her whispering to her husband in the night, and he leaves his home before the husband arrives. He goes straight to the woman's snow house. He raises his paws to smash it in—and then he lowers his paws to his side. Feeling betrayed, overcome with grief, he sets off on a long and solitary journey.<br /><br />To the European mind the story is poignant. For the Eskimo it is charged with danger. For the bear to go off preoccupied with such a subject means it will not be paying attention to where it is going, that it may fall through bad ice or miss signs that will lead it to an aglu and sustenance.”<br /><br />Barry Lopez, Chapter 3, Tornarssuk, p. 114, “Arctic Dreams”Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-35672840843833507842010-01-03T22:49:00.000-06:002010-01-03T22:50:06.864-06:00Quick summery/first draft for a piece called 'Regrets'In a relationship there is a beginning. It maybe simple and forgettable, but it is there and it doesn't matter. Their hair might have been long, short, or beautiful and in the end that too shall fade. Their face and the way they say hello will be boiled down into a feeling. Which will spread every time you recall the first kiss and the walk through the woods. this feeling will not be the sum of the relationship. It will not be the spark felt when they first made you laugh and it will not be the torn heart you can't get over. This feeling will be the taint of regrets spreading unstoppable.<br /><br />That time that you made icecream will now only be though of in terms of what you did wrong and what you should have done. Everything will seem clear. You will know that you both made mistakes, but you will only suffer for the mistakes you made.<br /><br />This burden will build with each new smile from your current love and will bind your tongue. One day someone will come along who decides that they can fix you. They will fail. There will be no moment where the past fades leaving only the present. Their love which will be based on your recovery will collapse leaving only the control freak within. And as they leave seemingly taking all that you had left, you will break.<br /><br />The burden of your life will drown you. You may commit suicide, but probably not. You care too much about the world. As you sit broken and crying in the bottom of your shower you will be reborn. This will be though a realization that your don't give a fuck and that life is too great to waste.<br /><br />You will be alone for longer than you previously thought possible.<br /><br />Those memories of being held and cooking together will be there, but now your life will be focused on the present, this moment. You will see the colors of the trees like never before. And the smell of the earth as you work your garden will almost overwhelm you. It is then that you will walk into their life and they into your's.<br /><br />Individuals playing the part. You will not do everthing together and more than likely will not truly love eachother for a long time. But it will not be until this point, this moment, that you can truly say you have no regrets.shanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026486399534124573noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-12870962773789824112009-12-28T01:38:00.002-06:002009-12-28T01:53:56.390-06:00My Two Essays for Marlboro CollegeThe first is my personal statement, in which I respond to the prompt: "Write a personal statement about who you are, how you think, what you value, and what issues and ideas interest you the most. Also tell us how your interest in Marlboro developed and how attending Marlboro College fits into your overall goals."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">A Personal Statement for Marlboro College</span><br /><br /> From the moment I discovered Marlboro College it has held a distinct appeal for me. Even the aspects that may commonly scare prospective students away, from its secluded location to its small size, are attractive: I can't wait to get out of the suburbs and closer to nature, and Malboro College seems as close to the middle of “nowhere” as any college I've considered. Of course, what really draws me to the college is the character of its program: I am looking for academic intensity and intellectual seriousness. Marlboro College appears to be the school that will challenge and empower me to translate what I've learned so far - and doubtlessly the much greater amount I still have to learn - into the foundation I need to accomplish my long-term goals.<br /><br /> I graduated from Cass City High School in 2006, a small public high school in the very rural and conservative heart of the thumb of Michigan. While there were some positive exceptions, I consider most of my schooling there an overall detriment to my education. For various reasons I left the school disillusioned with the role of public schools and skeptical of the notion of “higher education.” My high school transcript is not particularly impressive, however this was and is not so much a reflection of my capacity for learning as it is of the boredom and apathy induced by the atmosphere and academics of Cass City High School, and much less is it a reflection of my desire to learn, which is stronger than ever.<br /><br /> I'd like to think a more important education began for me upon graduation. Almost immediately I started reading voraciously, and within a year I absorbed several dozen works of natural and social philosophy and science. During this period I developed or adopted many positions and beliefs on a range of contemporary problems, and have spent much of my time since writing and further enhancing my understanding of the philosophies and theories behind major social, political, economic, and ecological ideas. While my primary interest has been in political philosophy, I have also read many popular science books on evolutionary biology, anthropology, linguistics, astronomy, human ecology, and physics (which is my current niche of exploration). I am also beginning to introduce myself to subjects I have mostly neglected, including cultural studies, language, sociology, mathematics, computer science, and psychology.<br /><br /> My wide reading has inspired in me many reflections on the human condition, and has caused me to at least question and at best discard many underlying assumptions which I used to take for granted. While I am not nearly as ideologically hot-tempered as I used to be I still operate on the conviction that modern industrial civilization has been organized along lines that are ecologically unsustainable, socially stratifying, and politically and economically unjust. While the world's resources are carelessly depleted; while its wondrous and essential biodiversity is being erased; and while a significant portion of its populations starve or lack (or are kept from) the means to improve their lives, the wealthiest nations thoughtlessly embrace, or at best placidly tolerate, mindless consumer culture, the resurgences of jingoistic nationalism and corrupted religions, hollow social relations, junk popular science, and a polity that is increasingly dominated by the influences of business and finance.<br /><br /> Such is my take on the world as I see it, and my academic plans extend from these thoughts. I feel many of the problems we face today are worsened by a failing public discourse. So it is my ambition to use my new-found talents and understanding, achieved through the rigor of the Marlboro College program, to be a popularizer of knowledge in the tradition of Carl Sagan or Will Durant. I want to come away from Marlboro College in a position both to contribute to my field of study and to improve the public understanding of its subject matter, especially where it is socially relevant.<br /><br /> Though my independent study has been consistently invigorating, it has also been sporadic and somewhat unfocused, and has surely lacked elements that are crucial to a proper, effective education. This realization is what first brought me to the college search in the summer of 2009. Still feeling sour toward major academic institutions, I decided to search out small liberal arts colleges. Thanks to the advice of a friend's father, I happened upon Loren Pope's Colleges That Change Lives and, subsequently, Marlboro College. It advertised what immediately stuck out as precisely the type of program and environment I wanted to immerse myself in, and that feeling has only intensified as I have read more about the college. I hope to use the Marlboro College experience to coalesce my many fragmented ideas into a proper thesis (or several), and to build the skills I need to make any lasting contributions I can to the advancement of public knowledge and understanding, and by extension the realization of a freer, more just, and more sustainable society.<br /><br />Next is my "expository writing sample," which is a straightforward analytical essay. It sums up my understanding of the process and role of the US media system. They say that they are looking for something which demonstrates my "social consciousness" so I thought the topic was appropriate, as well as happening to fall within my specialty. It is largely theoretical, and contains no case studies or real-world examples, as I felt they would lopside the essay too much, but perhaps I'm wrong. Also, the title is far too academic sounding and in that way may sound a bit presumptuous. Anyway:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />The Social Cost of Market-Based News Dissemination in America</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />“Information is the currency of democracy” - Thomas Jefferson</span><br /><br /><br /> Today more than ever the mass news media maintains a significant pressure on, and in certain situations entirely shapes, public discourse in America. It ceaselessly informs the opinions of ordinary Americans on a great variety of issues, from wars and financial crises to fashion and Hollywood gossip. As people become further removed from the realities of modern life – from increasingly esoteric scientific discoveries to the towering complexities and obfuscations of government decision-making – it has become necessary to examine more critically the mechanisms which relay information from the heights of academia and government to the everyday sensibilities of working Americans. Ideally, these mechanisms would operate in a way that enhances public knowledge and democratic and economic participation, contributing to the public interest. These mechanisms exist predominantly as businesses that compete with each other in the market for profit, and it turns out the costs of doing business – the exchanging of audiences for sponsorship – can have significant social consequences.<br /><br /> In a process that began in the nineteenth century with the advent of telegraphy and photography, and that exploded in the latter half of the twentieth, television broadcasting has replaced printed media and radio as the prevailing format of news dissemination in America. According to a poll conducted by the National Science Foundation in 2001, 53 percent of Americans rely primarily on television for their news, while newspaper readers make up only 29 percent of those polled. The shift from print media to electronic media has had a broadly negative impact, warns Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, on public knowledge and discourse in America. Postman argues that television as a media format – as opposed to books or early newspapers - is innately biased toward entertainment values, regardless of the type of program or content aired. He points out that any commercially successful model of television programming “offers viewers a variety of subject matter, requires minimal skills to comprehend... and is largely aimed at emotional gratification.” He argues that if this model is the most successful in attracting viewers in general, and consequently (and consequentially) the advertisers that follow them, then even news programs must emulate it in order to secure the advertisers' sponsorship. This has meant the cutting of lengthy exposition, contextual analysis, and continuity of content from news programs in an attempt to make them more palatable to a perceived fickle consumer audience. He calls the information that is left over from this process disinformation, and he explains that this is not false information – as might be expected from the propaganda apparatus of a totalitarian state – but “misleading information – misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information – information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing.” What results is a necessarily distorted picture of the world, which is presented to the viewing (and voting) public as truth.<br /><br /> This problem is significantly expanded in the case of televised analysis and debate. Postman writes that “in part because television sells its time in seconds and minutes, in part because television must use images rather than words, in part because its audience can move freely to and from the television set, programs are structured so that almost each eight-minute segment may stand as a complete event in itself.” Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky extend this thought in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, explaining that “the technical structure of the media virtually compels adherence to conventional thoughts; nothing else can be expressed between two commercials... without the appearance of absurdity that is difficult to avoid when one is challenging familiar doctrine with no opportunity to develop facts or argument.” In this way the absence of exposition, context, and continuity has the effect of naturally shedding fringe and alternative viewpoints from televised discourse. It also serves to shut out dissenting voices from the dominating avenue of information dissemination, leaving only those that stick closer to traditional or more “moderate” lines of thought.<br /><br /> This is echoed in the central thesis of Herman and Chomsky's book, in which they establish a theoretical set of naturally emerging “filters” that determine de facto newsworthiness. When views and analyses that meaningfully challenge the status quo are denied access to the major channels of information flow for most Americans, they argue, the news media inadvertently end up serving elite and corporate interests. This is not the result of a conspiracy on the part of an interested class, they go on, but is largely an “outcome of the workings of market forces.” These “market forces” are the result of the advertising-dependent business model that dominates large media firms. In 2003, newspapers received on average 80% of their revenues by selling print space to advertisers, while virtually all of the revenue earned by television and radio broadcasters was through advertising. Herman and Chomsky write that “with advertising, the free market does not yield a neutral system in which final buyer choice decides. The advertisers' choices influence media prosperity and survival.” It turns out that “in essence, the private media are major corporations selling a product (readers and audiences) to other businesses (advertisers).” When a news program or network carries subject matter that may be construed as politically radical or harmful to the national interest, or one that considers social perspectives and worldviews that are too far from established societal norms, it risks losing the essential support of its sponsors to other networks and programs that more strictly filter their content. What is left is a situation in which news media companies must decide between presenting a genuine variety of views and analyses on any pertinent but controversial topic or maintaining their competitiveness as mediums for advertisement, and thus their profitability and survival as businesses. The public is then left without ready access to a great deal of relevant information that would enable them to critically observe and affect the actions of their government.<br /><br /> In order to actively participate in - or even to effectively observe - government decision-making, citizens require a genuine range of views and analyses, lest only established or traditional doctrines prevail. It has long been assumed that free access to information is a cornerstone of healthy democracies. As Thomas Ferguson explains in The Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money Driven Political Systems, “to effectively control governments, ordinary voters require strong channels that directly facilitate mass deliberation and expression.” When economic realities constrict the dominant channels of deliberation and expression, citizens must expend considerable effort in order to obtain the information that does not make it through the news media filters, whether by seeking out alternative perspectives on the Internet or in independent magazines and newspapers. This leads to less political participation on the part of working Americans, as "even highly motivated voters face comparatively enormous costs when they attempt to acquire, evaluate, and act upon political information." Consequently, Ferguson argues, this has tended toward more political participation on the part of businesses, whose costs of gathering and acting on information are comparatively low - especially when weighed against the potential benefits of influence over political processes. Ordinary Americans are left behind as power shifts to corporations, which have now come to enjoy supreme influence over the outcomes of elections, concludes Ferguson. If we are to take democracy – of, by, and for the people - as a desirable mode of government, then it follows that the resulting gap in political influence, partially a consequence of uneven access to information, between ordinary citizens and corporations is detrimental to American democracy.<br /><br /> These effects represent a significant market failure – a situation in which the free market has produced an inefficient and socially undesirable effect. Whenever public awareness and understanding of social, political, economic, and ecological problems is limited as a result of natural market processes, a significant social cost has been incurred, one which reduces the public's capacity for meaningful participation in democratic processes. At its worst, the resulting situation is a severe asymmetry of information between social classes and a deficit of democracy. As in other examples of market failure – the most recognized being climate change as a result of unchecked industrial activity – reforms or the development of viable alternatives to the major news media have become necessary to ensure equal access to information amongst private citizens, and by extension the healthy functioning of democracy in America.<br /><br /><br /><br />Let me know what one thinks. Any glaring errors? Considering that I have not attended college yet and most every contributor to this blog has, lemme know if you think these are what a small liberal arts college may be looking for. Thanksss.Alex Hiattnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-72154302947034491302009-12-19T14:44:00.000-06:002009-12-19T14:44:20.886-06:00Sojourns - Journal, Memory, LandFrom <a href="http://www.sojournsmagazine.org/">Sojourns</a> Magazine, winter/spring '09 <a href="http://www.sojournsmagazine.org/lookinside.cfm?mode=detail&amp;id=1234249170832">issue</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Times I Have Seen The Animals</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><i> </i><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Craig Childs</i><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I was very young when I woke before dawn and grabbed the small knapsack beside the bed.&nbsp; In it I placed a spiral notepad, a sharpened pencil, a paper bag containing breakfast, and a heavy thrift-store tape recorder with grossly oversized buttons.&nbsp; I walked outside, through the neighborhood, and at the edge of a field full of red-winged blackbirds, I took out the tape recorder.&nbsp; Their officious little prattle lifted like shouts from the stock market floor.&nbsp; I pushed record and listened.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In time I moved on; recording birds in different trees, in other lots.&nbsp; I ate cold toast with careful bites.&nbsp; Writing things down: the time, the place, what the bird looked like.&nbsp; My penmanship as shaky, typical for elementary school.&nbsp; I wanted so badly to be able to write like an adult.&nbsp; Occasionally I would just make loops ith the pencil so that it looked like cursive.&nbsp; I worked at the entries, putting the last letter or two of a word on the next line if it wouldn't fit.&nbsp; It was important, as important as anything, and I acted as if I knew what I was doing, as if I knew something about birds.&nbsp; Which I did not.&nbsp; I understood only that they flew and that they did it well.&nbsp; I would hold the pencil in my teeth and hum thoughtfully as I had seen the adults do.&nbsp;<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">With my tape recorder, I walked these fields fanning below the east side of the Rock Mountains in Colorado.&nbsp; So rarely was I awake at this time of the day that it felt like my birthday or Thanksgiving.&nbsp; I had not known that the sunrise was so lavish and that you could actually feel the color when it reached your face.&nbsp; I had a fantasy of running away to the woods, becoming a nomad and a hermit, but soon enough the sixty minutes of tape ran out.&nbsp; I returned home. . .<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now I go out walking.&nbsp; Sometimes for a hundred miles, circling mountain ranges or following canyons for weeks and months.&nbsp; More often it is a quarter mile in an afternoon shuffling around the trees, looking for a soft place to sit.&nbsp; Out of habit, my eyes train on shapes and movements, and if I see any animal, it is invariably unexpected.&nbsp; I have no idea how proficient trackers do it - choosing their animal, then finding it.&nbsp; I choose a coyote and I get a very rainy day.&nbsp; I choose an elk and get a deer mouse.&nbsp; Then a mountain lion comes from behind while I am crouched, looking at its tracks.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">To see the animal, you must first remain very still.&nbsp; You may have to huddle in the dark of a street culvert for three nights before the raccoon comes.&nbsp; you may have to sit naked on the tundra before the grizzly finds you.&nbsp; Or you will simply have to be there, driving the highway the moment that a caravan of unhurried red-backed salamanders passes from one side to the other.&nbsp; That is when you must leave your car and get on hands and knees in the roadway.&nbsp; Just be careful not to touch the salamanders, because the acid from your fingertips will burn into their backs.&nbsp; When you encounter an animal, it may be as startling and quick as the buzz of a rattlesnake.&nbsp; Or you may have time to note the shift of wind and the daily motions of light.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Times that I have seen the animals have been like knife cuts in fabric.&nbsp; Through these stabs I could see a second world.&nbsp; There were stories of evolutions and hunger and death.&nbsp; Cross sections of genetic histories and predator-prey relationships, of lives as cryptic&nbsp; as blood paths in snow.&nbsp; I have talked with those at the Division of Wildlife who know.&nbsp; I have rummaged through clutters of skulls and skeletons in a musty museum basement and read the reports of field biologists.&nbsp; But it is outside where the grip of the story lies.<br /></div>Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-10688251220564543622009-12-18T22:50:00.000-06:002009-12-18T22:50:48.273-06:00Ideology&nbsp;An issue that has been haunting my thoughts of late is the extent and nature of the power and influence of ideas.&nbsp; I found myself pulled from the idea that "history is made by great individuals, great events, and great ideas," one traditional conception, towards the opposite feeling, by learning of <a href="http://goldenruledocumentary.blogspot.com/">new theories</a> in <a href="http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=487">political science</a> and filling my mind with the <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200909/social-sciences-are-branches-biology-ii">idea</a> that everything we know is a product of naturally emergent behaviors and that our understandings of social phenomena need to reflect that.&nbsp; <br /><br />Watching <a href="http://goldenruledocumentary.blogspot.com/">Golden Rule</a> introduced me to a wholly new and much more satisfying way to understand electoral politics.&nbsp; That is, elections and particularly party politics shouldn't be seen as indicative of the feelings and intellectual or sentimental trends of average voters, but rather as the shifting organization of blocs of investors (i.e., businesses and the wealthy) in conflict over issues of national policy that make a great deal of difference to their own interests.&nbsp; As I still had many questions, I decided to read the <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=iv6HhWfazncC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=golden+rule+investment&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;cd=1#v=onepage&amp;q=&amp;f=false">book</a>.1&nbsp; Having now finished the first chapter, I feel ready to phrase these questions.<br /><br />The overall question here is "What is the relationship between ideas and events in history?"<br /><br />By ideas, I mean particularly those we think of as profound, progressive, and as having 'shaped the course of history' - e.g., Abolitionism, Marxism, Human Rights, Constitutions, Capitalism, etc.&nbsp; I don't mean to doubt the impact of ideas at all - certainly ideas make a very great deal of difference to each of us individually.&nbsp; However, I want to plumb the character of the interactions between the rise in prevalence of great ideas and the social conditions that surround them (both as causes and effects).&nbsp; It is not a question that has a direct answer, of course, but I'm sure we can arrive at something more insightful and informative than merely writing it off as 'complicated.'<br /><br />I think the example of Abolitionism will be best suited to our particular group's interests.&nbsp; Alex has in the past cited the abolition of slavery as proof of the progressive enlightenment of humanity's 'moral compass' over time.&nbsp; He argues that the fact that at one time, slavery was both widespread and largely unquestioned morally, and the fact that it is now only an aberration and condemned by the majority of the world indicates that the populace has grown to realize that slavery is wrong.&nbsp; This is certainly true, but the question for us is whether this idea was the impetus for the abolition of slavery, or whether it is a side effect of other trends that more directly led to the abolition of slavery.&nbsp; As Ferguson points out, the business magnates funding abolitionist groups in the years before the Civil War were the grandchildren of men who thought nothing of the fact that ships they owned were bearing slaves to the New World.&nbsp; And indeed, it is hard for me to believe that some trend towards moral tenderness over the millennia made the idea of abolishing slavery, which has undoubtedly been around in some form since slavery began, suddenly direly urgent to the people of the Northern US.&nbsp;<br /><br />The answer seems to lie in some middle ground.&nbsp; Ideas are somehow inextricable from political movements, but the movements themselves rely on some more concrete economic driving force.&nbsp; Would be interesting to discuss/learn of the ways the progression of the history of ideas has been thus moved and shaped by economics and political science; to see how ideas don't move towards an ever more complex and accurate and interesting form merely by building on the shoulders of their predecessors.&nbsp; <br /><br />----------------------------------------------<br />Footnotes<br />1.&nbsp; After reading the first chapter of the book, I realized that Ferguson's thesis does not mean that ideologies are not driving forces in politics because they are not capable of doing so, but rather because ideologies are relevant only to real people.&nbsp; The entities driving politics today are profit-seeking bodies investing in politics not to bring about a Utopian state according to any ideology, but rather in order to protect their interests and increase their profits.&nbsp; As Ferguson notes, it is not impossible that the people become major investors in politics, and, in such a situation, the interests of the people would be brought about however they saw fit.&nbsp; This manifestation would presumably correspond to the ideologies of the populace.&nbsp;Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-25806135509646643982009-12-18T13:12:00.005-06:002009-12-18T13:21:15.567-06:00Essay<span style="font-style: italic;">Ellicottville, New York. October. 2:30 AM.</span><br />Two black cats fight in the street next to the Curly-Q Fries buggy. Their bodies heave under the pale streetlights until one cat flees, a dart shot across the courthouse lawn. I’m driving through a small town bisected by a two-lane highway that meanders through western New York. This town is shaped by migrators--the froth of cars on the highway, and the affluent skiers that drift north on cold weekends, pumping blood into the shops at Ellicottville’s center. Tonight, mine is the sole car on the highway, and the skiers will not come for months. The only discernible life here at this hour is a couple standing together in front of the closed, dimly night-lit stores that sell decorative furniture and fleece jackets. The couple stands in strange juxtaposition with the quaint shops and clean, brick streets--the man is fat, wearing all black, and is maybe 30. The woman has bleached blond hair and dark eye makeup. They embrace under the streetlights and glare at my headlights as I pass.<br /><br />I have sunk into the rhythm of night consciousness. Mozart’s wife used to read to him while he composed so that his occupied senses would not distract him from the music. The motion of the car and the repetitive, dark-engulfed scenery outside have the same effect on me; my thoughts tumble unfiltered as I watch the road. In particular, I am noticing the details I typically miss--the imprints and debris of people’s lives, like the abandoned newspaper by the drainage grate or the path feet have eroded in the courthouse lawn. Oddly, seeing this town without people is a startling reminder that people exist. <br /><br />As I drive, the quality of Ellicottville’s streetlights evokes the small, Midwestern town where I spent late elementary and middle school, and my memory folds in on itself. I choke on details--the abandoned house on our street, former object of my obsession; how I would sneak into the backyard and squint through its grimy windows at the darkness inside. And the ice cream shop a few streets from my house that provided a succession of vanilla soft-serve with sprinkles on the days it was too hot to play outside. Specifically, Ellicottville’s streetlights reference a night in sixth grade when my parents and I ate dinner at the home of a boy in my class whose stepmom worked with my dad. Our parents were drunk and the boy Keenan and I asked to go out and play in the dark--permission was easily granted. We collected Calvin and James, classmates in the neighborhood, and roamed the October streets, tumbling through backyards, while careful to trespass only in grass belonging to old ladies James knew or to friends of Calvin's parents. <br /><br />We hid from one another in the damp boxes slumped on curbs for trash pickup and behind the sequences of shrubs that characterize Midwestern college towns. When desperate to be concealed, we folded our bodies into the shadows of houses and cars, breathless and delirious as we waited to be discovered. Once tired of hiding, we dragged ourselves panting through darkened neighborhoods under the yellow-gray light diffusing from streetlights high above our heads. Passing a familiar video store, James pointed to a flagpole next to an illuminated law firm sign in the parking lot. He lowered his voice and shared a secret: while holding the flagpole with one hand, a person, even a small one, could lean forward, touch the metal base of the sign and receive the mildest of electric shocks. He demonstrated and we followed, delighted by the revelation that electricity had slept under our gazes. <br /><br />Secrets like James’ peppered our lives then. Once, a neighbor ripped up his sidewalk to make a flowerbed, and I dragged my dad’s shovel over to help excavate. Treasures surfaced in the dirt--toy soldiers, a spoon, a child’s bracelet. My neighbor pulled up a caramel-colored marble, polished it on his shirt and handed it to me. I<span style="font-style: italic;">t’s glazed wood</span>, he said. <span style="font-style: italic;">An antique. Worth 100 dollars at least</span>. I never checked the fact, but kept the marble in sacred spaces--in my bedpost (home to the yellow, never-inflated balloon that held the hundred dollar bill my uncle gave me at his wedding), in an altoids tin in my sock drawer, and then in a jewelry box decorated with the face of the Virgin that I inherited from my Catholic grandmother. I always knew where the marble was, and I worshiped the mystery of its past. Then, when grass grew over the demolished sidewalk where it had miraculously sprung from the earth, I made a new discovery--the height difference between the grass and the cement of the sidewalk next door formed a sort of ramp, over which I rode my bike continuously all spring and into the summer.<br /><br />These secrets were my favorite secrets of elementary school. Whispered accounts of first kisses lost potency after their initial rush, but the visceral excitement of James’ flagpole shock reignited each time my dad and I passed the law firm parking lot on our way to rent a video. While the flagpole and sign were too banal to merit a second look from my dad, my chest warmed with privileged knowledge as we passed. In that way, those secrets gave us power. Our parents could differentiate the highways and navigate the class structure of the university in town, but we knew our environment in intricate detail. We could recite what all the graffiti on the dumpsters near our houses said and we knew which trees were best to climb. This was our independence strategy--the details that structured our lives were alien to our parents, and also benign. We could control them ourselves without help or interference.<br /><br />But my attention returns to Ellicottville when 219 North turns down a residential street, displaying quaint, modest homes and leafy oaks that are beginning to redden in response to early October. Most of the windows are dark, and I notice that I instinctively search for the lights left on. They tend to be at the backs of houses. Small lamps that illuminate swaths of kitchen or living room--a piano, a leather armchair, a knife left on the table by the sink. In one house, muffled light seeps through an upstairs curtain, and I think: bedroom. I imagine the person who might be inside, maybe a victim of fall insomnia like myself, and I immediately understand how far I am from the childish consciousness of elementary school. <br />Sometime around puberty, our lives became about people, not places or things. Independence meant embracing the adult ethics to which we were becoming attuned. We learned to structure our lives through more nuanced interactions than those with our physical environment. This enriched us in some ways--friendships were no longer simply conspiratorial--but it impoverished us, as well. For children, social formality was dispensable as long as we had apparent good intentions. We didn't know all the rules, and if we did, we broke them. We talked to strangers, walked on neighbors’ properties, picked their flowers, touched their lawn ornaments, but we were earnest. We were curious and vigorous and unselfconscious in our desires. Truly, we were charmed. <br /><br />Now, far removed from that, I cannot go back. I can only be reminded from time to time, in places like Ellicotville whose night incarnation accentuates the details of physical environment, of what the world seemed through my childhood eyes. But my consciousness is richer now, and in every place I go, I feel a communion with its humanity more than an appreciation for its sights. In Ellicottville, my sympathy is with the strange couple alone on the street and with the few dispersed residents whose curtained lights indicate that they are still awake. I do not lament this change in me, but as I follow 219 North out of town, the reflections of my headlights on the pavement touch the squares of curtained window light spilling onto the highway. It’s a kind of prayer.Sylviehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05260968591323827490noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-61154153658932413642009-12-16T02:53:00.001-06:002009-12-16T18:11:41.466-06:00A Humble Piece of Reverence Towards BeingI have for a very long time been intending to express in writing some intuited revelations and feelings about Being, Time, and Awareness.&nbsp; This is that expression.&nbsp; I do not intend for it to advance an argument or prove anything, because the things I have to say have already been well established or are simply self-evident.&nbsp; The point is rather to reflect on several truths that I find terrifically affecting and profound.&nbsp; <br /><br />My feelings about time were the impetus for this post, so it seems appropriate to begin there.&nbsp; For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by the passing of time.&nbsp; I find it amazing to imagine past moments and future ones, knowing that I will experience them with the same immediacy and vivacity I am living right now.&nbsp; It is somewhat scary to know that the day of your death will arrive just as quickly from this moment as the present did from your childhood.&nbsp; Not that the remainder of your life will even pass terribly quickly, or be any less fulfilling than you hope it to be; the fact that it is true at all that time is inexorable and that there is an end is affective enough in and of itself.&nbsp; <br /><br />The other idea arose from several quotes I found striking for some reason I didn't quite understand at the time I read them:<br /><blockquote><br />"a self-invented word" - as in, a word that invented itself, a word independent of thinkers and writers and, well, inventors of words.&nbsp; I have no idea where I read this.&nbsp; <br /><br />". . . strange, intimate music which seemed to be submerged in itself, to be listening to itself; . . ." - from Demian, by Hermann Hesse.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />These phrases stuck with me, and gained meaning for me as I came to my current superficial understanding of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley">George Berkeley</a>'s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaterialism">Idealism</a>.&nbsp; The relevant thesis of this philosophy is that "<b></b>there are no material objects, only minds and ideas in those minds."&nbsp; That is, existence depends on perception, and it is therefore meaningless to speak of anything as existing when it is not being perceived.&nbsp; As I first grasped this, I recognized its truth as irrefutable but irrelevant.&nbsp; (There is a David Hume quote to that effect, which I can't seem to find at the moment.)&nbsp; <br /><br />As our Freshman Studies class discussed Kurosawa's film <i>Rashomon</i>, several of my classmates said things to the effect of "What if there is no objective reality?"&nbsp; When put it this way, Berkeley's Immaterialism seems quite invalid.&nbsp; Not logically fallacious, but something that only has meaning within the context of human language and thought and is only true within that context.&nbsp; To say there is no objective reality at all is absurd, since there is obviously something, and subjective things are contingent on some objective thing - the mind itself, if nothing else.&nbsp; Objective reality without subjective perception thereof is easily understood (if not, in deference to Berkeley, logically meaningful or imaginable).&nbsp; And while objective reality may be counter-intuitive in the thick of subjective personal existence, it is quite intuitive in the context of science.<br /><br />This is the essence of a feeling that I have found to be the most profound and affecting: the illusion of perception or understanding of things-as-they-are, of objective reality.&nbsp; I get this feeling in nature most of all.&nbsp; I find it in the sound of leaves rustled by wind sleeping in a tent at night.&nbsp; Mountains, once they have become vague entities - mere silhouettes - in the twilight, are beings that tangibly flaunt the fact of their Objective Being, the undeniable Fact that they have existed for millions of years quite independent of any perceiving eye.&nbsp; It was partly in search of this feeling that I went to three National Parks over winter break this year.&nbsp; <br /><br />A more straightforward feeling is&nbsp; "How Strange It Is to Be Anything At All" (from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Aeroplane_over_the_Sea">In The Aeroplane Over the Sea</a>).&nbsp; It's something I'm sure we've all felt, but it's worth reflecting on.&nbsp; The fact that an objective Universe, existing unperceived for untold billions of years, developed, through naturally emergent phenomena, beings aware of it subjectively, is unfathomably amazing, for its improbability and for its own innate, ineffable wonder.&nbsp; Lawrence Weschler <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200310/?read=article_clarke_weschler">expresses</a> this much more articulately than I ever could:<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>"Pop quiz in seventh grade English. The teacher has her class address a simple question in the form of an impromptu essay: What is the purpose of human existence on earth? And she gives the kids fifteen minutes. <br />She gets a variety of responses, and one of them, from an at-that-time eleven-year-old girl (who, for the purposes of this essay, we will call my daughter, Sara), goes like this: <br /><br /><blockquote><b>WHY IS THE HUMAN ON EARTH?</b> <i>I believe that there is, despite the fact that we humans have done so much damage to the world, a reason for our existence on this planet. I think we are here because the universe, with all it’s wonder and balance and logic, needs to be marveled at, and we are the only species (to our knowledge) that has the ability to do so. We are the one species that does not simply except what is around us, but also asks why it is around us, and how it works. We are here because without us here to study it, the amazing complexity of the world would be wasted. And finally, we are here because the universe needs an entity to ask why it is here."</i><br /></blockquote>&nbsp;"Wonder and balance and logic, indeed—to which one might add beauty and grace. But all of it—and this is Sara’s crucial insight—all of it is for naught (or at any rate for naught in terms of “wonder” and “balance” and “logic” and “beauty” and “grace”) without the necessarily fragile and puny and utterly contingent human gaze.<br /><br />Why is there anything, ask the philosophers, with their very first originary question, rather than simply just nothing at all? To which might now be added: And why—however possibly could there be—anything as stupendously, improbably, and heart-rendingly lovely as <i>this? </i>But that last formulation in turn opens out upon a greater wonder still, the shivering, shimmering ghost at the heart of the great machine: Given that there is something rather than nothing, why, how does it come to be (after all, how easily could it never have come to be!) (and how terrifyingly easily could it all yet cease to be) that embedded in its midst there is something capable of becoming aware of, let alone appreciating, all that splendor?"<br /></blockquote><br />What strikes me about this is that it is wrong, though not in spirit: the Universe very much does <b>not</b> need anything to wonder at it or ask why it is there.&nbsp; If it did, we would be necessary rather than contingent, and there would be nothing surprising at all about existing.&nbsp; Berkeley would, in a small but consequential sense, be right.<br /><br />The thing that always baffled me, as far back as I can remember, was that I was me and not anyone else.&nbsp; Why I am looking in on the Universe from this little portal of subjectivity and not from yours, or from that of a pre-historic dog?&nbsp; It's not a question with an answer, because its answer is a tautology, but it's baffling for all that.&nbsp; This is, I think, the question that begs the most for me to ascribe meaning to my life - though as it is a moot question, that ascription has grim prospects.<br /><br />Nested Colons: A corollary: Perhaps the one idea of all of these that you may not have considered before: Since our consciousness is a naturally emergent property of the Universe and a product of evolution, our senses and our capacity for understanding are limited to the side effects of evolutionary necessity.&nbsp; The whole nature of the way we understand the world is just due to happenstance, the least possible attributes and skills and senses we need to survive: we are not "put here to understand the Universe."&nbsp; We try to do so only because we don't have anything better to do.&nbsp; And really, can you imagine anything more worthwhile to aspire to, though we can never achieve it?&nbsp;Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-49328954327723886022009-11-28T02:07:00.001-06:002009-11-28T02:29:05.924-06:00The Believer"<i>The Believer</i> is a monthly magazine where length is no object.<br />There are book reviews that are not necessarily timely, and that are very often very long.<br />There are interviews that are also very long.<br />We will focus on writers and books we like.<br />We will give people and books the benefit of the doubt.<br />The working title of this magazine was <i>The Optimist</i>."<br /><br />I discovered this magazine many months after stumbling across one <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200705/?read=article_taylor">article</a> in it and being given <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200901/?read=article_lutz">another</a> by Caitlin.&nbsp; I made the connection idly scrolling through my accumulated bookmarks and realizing I had two articles from the same magazine but didn't know anything about the magazine.&nbsp; Especially in its early days, this magazine was everything I would ever want in a magazine, and a lot of what I dream this blog could be.&nbsp;<br /><br /><br />It is ostensibly a literature magazine, and during its first few years included many original pieces.&nbsp; There was a heavy emphasis on prose poetry.&nbsp; Each issue included a <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200306/?read=light_laser">Light</a>, a <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=tool_planer">Tool</a>, a <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=child_aidan">Ch</a><a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200310/?read=child_alexandra">ild</a>, a Motel, and a <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200305/?read=mammal_children">Mam</a><a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200309/?read=mammal_unicorn">mal</a>. &nbsp; There was an <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=idea_share">Idea Share</a>.&nbsp; There are also plentiful book reviews (moreso in the more recent issues).&nbsp; There is a music issue and an art issue each year.&nbsp; The meat of the magazine is in indulgent articles from people like us, except more like our ideal selves than our real selves (at least as writers and intellectuals, that is), regarding things they <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200702/?read=article_aviv">have done</a>, issues in the world, or, most often, <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200809/?read=article_potts">people</a> (usually <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200403/?read=article_manguso">authors</a>) they are fascinated by.&nbsp; There is also an interview with a <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200901/?read=interview_dumm">philosopher</a> in almost every issue, most of which deal with <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200709/?read=interview_dewaal">morality</a>.&nbsp; There are sometimes interviews with <a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200909/?read=interview_zimbardo">Scientists</a> as well.<br /><br /><br />Each of the links I included in the previous paragraph I feel is highly worth reading.&nbsp; Some are long while others are quite short.<br /><br /><br />I want to affirm again that this magazine is one of the potential things we would make if we were given the resources.&nbsp; It's beautiful.Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-7600347393125534902009-11-24T18:01:00.000-06:002009-11-24T18:01:45.504-06:00τέτρα στοιχεῖαI've successfully embarked on the further development of that concept I wrote about earlier. Here's my first rough draft of a presentation explaining only part of it, I have quite a lot more planned out already. I hope to go into much more depth with this project, hopefully creating a book worth of writing and probably visual aids as well, I think they help. I appreciate any and all feedback, and I hope you guys enjoy it! =D<br />Love Blase<br /><br /><div style="width:425px;text-align:left" id="__ss_2578210"><a style="font:14px Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;display:block;margin:12px 0 3px 0;text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/BlaseShare/ss-2578210" title="τέτρα στοιχεῖα">τέτρα στοιχεῖα</a><object style="margin:0px" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=random-091124174123-phpapp01&stripped_title=ss-2578210" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><embed src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=random-091124174123-phpapp01&stripped_title=ss-2578210" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><div style="font-size:11px;font-family:tahoma,arial;height:26px;padding-top:2px;">View more <a style="text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a style="text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/BlaseShare">BlaseShare</a>.</div></div>Blase Masseranthttps://plus.google.com/113893950861555128192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-89838086009263214172009-11-22T14:41:00.001-06:002010-05-26T16:07:01.197-05:00PoetryAfter we'd finished Einstein, the next and last work we read in Freshman Studies this term was the poetry of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop">Elizabeth Bishop</a>.&nbsp; I had never heard of Bishop, and didn't particularly enjoy her works.&nbsp; The class discussions we had, meant to help us increase our appreciation for the poems, instead merely helped me understand them cognitively - our professor implied this assertion that poetry could be appreciated as a puzzle, which, while true, doesn't mean that if you solve the puzzle, you necessarily appreciate the poem lyrically.&nbsp; I don't mean to try to start a discussion here of 'what poetry is' because after all, unlike science and like pornography, poetry isn't something that can be defined: you just know it when you see it.&nbsp; <br /><br />Some questions to spark discussion (I can only hope. . . ):<br /><br />1.&nbsp; Why do poets (and artists in general) take on the limitations of form?&nbsp; Why, for example, would you choose to write a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestina">sestina</a> instead of a free verse poem?&nbsp; As poets and artists have moved away from strict forms, have they done anything else differently to accomplish whatever form did for artists previously?<br /><br />2.&nbsp; Is it better to read a poem independently, judging on its own terms, without taking into account information about the author's biography or historical and contextual references?&nbsp; More specifically, regarding poems in which outside information (arguably) plays an important role in understanding, is there an order in which you would apply multiple approaches?<br /><br />3.&nbsp; Considering that I didn't like Bishop much, and most of you have probably never heard of her (had you?), what one poet would you suggest for a class like Freshman Studies?&nbsp; It should be something pretty widely accessible, with some depth of meaning, and not too avant-garde, if only because it is meant as a representative sample of "poetry," in order to help students appreciate poetry as a whole, not to show them a cool individual experimental poet.<br /><br />Also feel free to just post poetry here.&nbsp; That'd be lovely.&nbsp; I am enjoying prose poetry right now; what do you all think of it?&nbsp; To me, it's highly reminiscent of the things Erik Helwig and Alex write, in that it is funny and beautiful at the same time, and in that it is surreal and playful.&nbsp; <br /><br /><a href="http://www.webdelsol.com/LITARTS/edson/">http://www.webdelsol.com/LITARTS/edson/</a>Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-52245619365134643552009-11-21T23:54:00.000-06:002009-11-21T23:54:21.603-06:00College has Over, College is BrokenAs I sit and write this, my roommate quite literally keeps hacking pieces of his lungs into our sink.&nbsp; He claims this is a good sign - I am dubious.<br /><br />Tonight I finished the first term of College.&nbsp; Relief and relaxation are overpowering and washing away stress and discouragement, for the moment.&nbsp; I look forward to spending the weekend and most of my six-week winter break reading and sleeping and writing.&nbsp; I have several somewhat ambitious writing projects in mind:<br /><br />- A journal letter documenting the psychological aspects of this term.<br /><br />- A philosophical treatise about objective reality and time, without a real thesis or point - a <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;hs=zGm&amp;defl=en&amp;q=define:belletristic&amp;ei=fasHS4OXHsqpnQfEzcW8Cw&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=glossary_definition&amp;ct=title&amp;ved=0CAcQkAE">belleletristic</a> (favorite word of today) piece of philosophy.&nbsp; <br /><br />- A smut story meant to imitate Lovecraft and also be funny meanwhile.<br /><br />Speaking of Lovecraft, I've been reading Alex's Best of H.P. Lovecraft in big chunks lately.&nbsp; For some reason I decided to write a "critical piece" on his work, which I've done, and decided it was very poorly executed and not worthwhile in the first place.&nbsp; I will try to say what I said in it in one paragraph here:<br /><br />I find it interesting to note that Lovecraft's own rational, scientific mindset is discounted and made to seem narrow-minded in his works. Instead of presenting this view in opposition to the depravity of the Horror in his stories, the conflict is instead always between the wholly and inconceivably unfamiliar and the 'wholesome,' familiar world, represented in Lovecraft's historical context by Christianity. This makes sense, however, when one contemplates the reason Lovecraft wrote fiction. He was not merely writing to make money, or to give people cheap thrills: his work is an attempt to Romanticize the latest scientific discoveries, which shifted humanity ever further from the center of a meaningful Universe, discoveries that “all contributed to make the human race seem even more insignificant, powerless and doomed in a materialistic and mechanical universe.”<br /><br />I went with my mom, Alex, Trey, and Cansu to Shenandoah Books the other day and bought the following Books there: <i>The Virgin and The Gipsy,</i> and <i>Lady Chatterley's Lover</i>, both by D.H. Lawrence, <i>The Conquest of Happiness</i>, by Bertrand Russell, <i>Fatu-Hiva </i>and <i>Aku-Aku</i>, both by Thor Heyerdahl, <i>The Loved One</i>, by Evelyn Waugh, <i>The Plague</i>, by Albert Camus,&nbsp; <i>The English Patient</i>, by Michael Ondaatje, and <i>Buddenbrooks</i>, by Thomas Mann, as well as a collection of short stories by ETA Hoffmann.Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-70108575820821805442009-11-17T14:00:00.000-06:002009-11-17T14:00:19.387-06:00An incomplete visionIt's taken me forever to post this. I hope this provides some insight on a certain characteristic of mine. I had the idea to write a grand composition of sorts explaining a concept that came to my head. In a somewhat failed attempt to capture the thought as it occurred, since I knew otherwise I'd never get around to writing it, I jotted quickly what came to my mind spur 'o' the moment style. I got kind of off the topic of what my main goal was, and never finished it. I wasn't gonna post it on SC yet, since I was convincing myself I was gonna rewrite it and finish it. I probably never will, I've already gotten a new idea basically about the same thing which I think will be a more effective way of explaining it. Now I just hope I can get some work done on that before I get another new idea 2 weeks from now. Anyways, remember this isn't the core of what I originally wanted to say, nor has it been edited and improved as Adam suggested, but if I don't do it now I probably will never post it. Carpe diem.<br /><br />"Let me share with you my vision. I yearn to be part of something greater than myself, to join in a community of people who radiate life’s energy and vibrate together in beauty, basking in each other’s glow. Life is not something that happens, but an energy to be created and expressed by everyone in all that they do. A genius is just someone lucky enough or determined enough to express their potential at some point in their life. Every one of us is capable of such genius, but like all life, it requires the right environment to develop. Our potential/energy/genius/beauty, it needs nourishment, just like a plant needs light, water, and fertile soil. The essential component is love.<br /><br />Love is the light, the fire, the warmth which fosters our inner beauty and encourages it to flourish. It is something beyond definition, but I hope the words I use will resonate with your soul, and you will remember something you felt in your life which was love. To show love to someone, means to be willing to get to know them, what they like, who they are, their past, their dreams for the future, and not only accepting them, but appreciating them, and seeking the same love from them. Sharing love with someone creates an open flow in which you can communicate your ideas, thoughts and dreams, without fear for rejection or disapproval. It is that social connection that humans as social beings yearn for, and it is through connecting with each other that we share our potential and power to achieve our dreams and fill our lives with beauty.<br /><br />So few of us seem to experience true love, we are fooled into believing it is something we can only share with our mate, but we are so mistaken. All is full of love, or should I say potential love, just like the potential energy you learn about in physics. We can, and often do, love our family, neighbors and friends. Sometimes it’s just a smile or saying hi, we only release some of our potential energy, our potential love. But every relationship you have with another human could be as full of love as the relationship you have with your spouse or lover. You could meet a complete stranger, and if you shared yourself with them for one year, unconditionally accepting them for who they are, you would forge a bond of true love with them. We could share our lives, our love with one another, but we don’t. Perhaps we are afraid, afraid that we will try to reach out but be turned away or shot down, not returned the love which we offer. It seems so difficult, but if we lived and grew in a community where everyone let their love radiate and shared their lives with each other, if as children we grew up each day with a daily dose of love from all around us, it would become part of our very essence to do the same.<br /><br />Many people have tried to define “human nature”, saying people are inherently this or inherently that. People are not inherently good or bad, but we each have an amazing potential for both. Boys grow up in the ghetto of Los Angeles, are given the identity of a blood or a crip, and become soldiers. Killing is a part of everyday life, they and adapt to it and become accustomed to it. But even then, nobody likes it that way, they would get out of the hood if they had a chance. Nobody likes facing the threat of death every day, the will to live is certainly a part of human nature. If inherently we all want the best for our own lives, if that is part of human nature, the only way we can do that is not through competing and fighting, but through caring for and sharing with one another. If that is true, then the behavior most beneficial and desirable to human nature is that of love. The sharing of our love energy with one another provides the base on which we can build our dreams and make them real, enriching every fiber of our lives with beauty.<br /><br /> This abundant love energy serves as the fuel for our creative energy, and our pursuit for perfect beauty. It must be understood that before we can exude beauty in all that we do, we must first have that equivalent abundance of love. This energy field of love, in essence is a spiritual connection of humanness, since really love is the sharing and expression of our humanness with each other. If we are so deeply connected with this spiritual force of humanness, we can all the more easily connect with nature, and imbue our human energy and beauty in our interactions with it. Everything we do is an interaction with the nature around us, whether it’s growing a plant, throwing a ball, or painting a picture. We can channel the energy we receive from love into these actions and interactions, into everything we do. The concept of “art” is exactly that.<br /><br /> A song is more than just a collection of sounds, and a painting is more than paints on a canvas, it is a manifestation of our humanness/human energy in a natural physical form. The more we are in touch with our collective and individual humanness through love, the more and easier we can express this energy in balance with and cooperation with nature’s energy and create beauty in all we do. Beauty is a harmony and balance with nature, and an expression of our harmony...." and then I stopped for some reason and had to do something else I guess. I never went back and reformatted it or continued it :/Blase Masseranthttps://plus.google.com/113893950861555128192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-89714737341150393182009-11-07T01:59:00.002-06:002009-11-07T02:39:25.685-06:00ScienceI'd like to paraphrase and reproduce and expand on a discussion we had in Freshman Studies today as a conclusion to our study of Einstein's <span style="font-style: italic;">Relativity</span>. I want to do this to practice creating the kind of provocative and insightful discussions my professor does in class, and because I think it is an interesting topic. <br /><br />Q. What is Science? <br /><br />Before moving on, stop and think through this for a minute. Develop a provisional definition of Science. Write it down. <br /><br />My initial definition from class: Science is the rigorously skeptical search to establish what we can regard as objectively true, independent of perceptual or emotional or other bias. <br /><br />Things a definition should do, and how my definition fails to do them:<br /><br />1. Establish qualifications dividing things that are science from things that merely seem to be. <br />I fear mine is too rigorous - should it be explicitly expanded to include the kind of interpretational or contextually unique truths produced by sciences like sociology, historical analysis, and political science? What "rigorous skepticism" implies and how it is obtained practically must be explained in order to very specifically exclude all things that do not meet those criteria. <br /><br />2. Establish that Plato's Republic and other works that apply logical reasoning in pursuit of Truth in metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, etc, are not Science. As <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/mar/03/science-definition-council-francis-bacon">David Edgerton says</a>, "a definition of science needs to define the nature of the knowledge not the means of its creation only." Why would a hypothetical work that, unlike the Republic, used a logically rigorous and thorough scientific process to discover what the true nature of Justice is, not qualify as Science?<br /><br />I am intentionally refraining from trying to fix these flaws in my own definition. I want you all to create your own definitions, and then we will hopefully critique each others' and arrive at a few serviceable definitions. <br /><br />A. As defined by the British Science Council after a <span style="font-style: italic;">year</span> of deliberations, "Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence." Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is not Science. (Will anyone appreciate this reference?) Sarcasm aside, however, does this definition meet our criteria? Do you accept it?Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-45710329139511877682009-11-04T22:17:00.006-06:002009-11-04T22:44:35.832-06:00The Sacred and the ProfaneBack from the dead.<br />That's me.<br />The influx of good posts has served as jumper cables for my carbody.<br /><br />I will say something relevant to dreams because that's where we started:<br />A month ago I went to Ontario to visit my parents for the first time since I moved out in July. A week after I got back, I had two odd dreams within a few days of each other. In the first, my dad beat me up. He punched and kicked me until I couldn't move, and I woke up crying, and feeling humiliated and furious. Then a night or two later, I dreamed that my mom had a psychotic break and I needed to call 911 but she was hoarding all the phones and I was terrified she might hurt me or herself. I woke up crying and feeling inconsolably panicked.<br /><br />In an offhand conversation, I told my boss, an anthropologist, about the dreams. She was so unsurprised that it didn't even occur to her to be surprised, which surprised me because I was shocked by the dreams. (Untangle that sentence for ten points.) She said that she had some of her worst nightmares between high school and college. This type of experience is so common that anthropology has a specific name (I forget it, though) for such transitional periods and the feelings and actions they evoke. Actions: in a phase of life with few established rules and rituals and little external structure, we must create our own rules and rituals. Thoughts: we must distinguish things as either sacred or profane by ourselves, and we experiment with making profane that which was once sacred (friends, family, ideas...). We do some of these experiments in dreams. Hmm...<br /><br />I thought that was an interesting take on a phenomenon we're all interested in.<br /><br />Incidentally, I have heard the phrase "the sacred and the profane" a lot before. And I know it's fairly common, but does anyone know where specifically I would have heard it repeated in literature? I'm thinking either Anais Nin or Henry Miller? Help?Sylviehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05260968591323827490noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-59272418248953460592009-10-29T12:16:00.003-06:002009-10-29T12:24:26.340-06:00Possible artist statement. Thoughts. Thoughts?Last time I posted something sizable, something rotating around my thoughts or though process, I didn't get any comments at all. In fact, that post still has no comments. But I'm going to attempt to get your opinions once more...<br />This artist statement [in progress] is specifically for my fibers studio class, but the thoughts that filter through my work in that medium also factor into my other practices and my general view of relationships, interaction, and the movement of the world. This is my first draft.<br /><br />--<br />Artist Statement<br /><br /><br />When considering the collection and recording of texts, it is notable that:<br />The amount of text that is displayed in the inbox screen must be directly reflected in the personal title of the recreation of the text.<br />The word breaks and usage of letters, numbers, punctuation, and grammar must all be taken exactly from the source message to preserve the integrity of the original message and the person and moment and development associated with said message.<br />The date and time of each message should be noted and charted so as to give context and keep the text in its most original form with the basic information set given.<br />Organization of text messages should not necessarily tell a complete story or work as a straight narrative; however, there should be an implied emotional record or chart of development supposed with the relationship between receiver and each corresponding person sending the texts.<br /><br />The format of fibers makes texts, a distant and impersonal communication tool, a bit more personal and attempts to reclaim them, the connections they represent, and/or the emotions previously filtered through a technological fog. Printing makes reference to the impersonality and the mass of superficial communication made available and exploited by texting and technology in general, but the use of hand-written letters with the associated time involved with etching and printing does again what embroidering or stitching the texts does: it adds a touch of humanity. This is alienated humanity, though, since it comes directly from the receiver and attempts to fill the pits left by senders. Texts are still seen through my particular history, experience, and DNA and selected because of the way these things tint my view of each. Because the texts the viewer might see are selected, the viewer’s sense of reality or narrative or even function is warped and detached, fitting the overall theme of the work despite its seeming attempts to calm this reality, or even fight it. Each text still feels a bit out of place… lonely, even.<br /><br />This in no way explains the mindset of today or the disconnect I associate with it. I, having lived only in this century, have no real means by which to accurately make a claim about mindsets past, and so have no way to compare them to the present, or define the present by them. Even so, it is my impression that any sort of zeitgeist right now is a disconnected, unfocused, and lonely one. I mainly explore this through communication.<br />Despite ourselves, we aim for it. We wave our hands, distort our faces, speak, write, scribble, touch. We share things. We make.<br />The key in it all seems to be communication.<br /><br />We can’t help this; it’s programmed into us to communicate, to connect, and in doing so, to stay alive and reproduce. Every emotion is set in brain waves and bodily balances. Every social experience, experiment, and impulse can be broken down into basic chemicals and survival of the species. We make friend groups, essentially, for survival and to fill our ‘trust’ quota, another safety mechanism. We romance for the sake of species continuation. We hold family bonds because groups are safer units and give us support systems. We search for identity as a means of understanding ourselves, sorting others, and measuring compatibility and associate ourselves with specifics to facilitate this. So, we continue to interact, despite the emotional wear-and-tear and the continued failure to truly connect with another, which we’re programmed to long for, search for, and possibly even think we’ve found.<br /><br />Focusing simply on language, our attempts to communicate with each other, to understand, be understood, and through this, connect comes across rapidly. Everything has a written reciprocal. Documentation, receipts, records, lists, poetry, science books, street signs. We write and we read and we type and we hit “enter”, and in the fractured attention and narrative of our current day-to-day, we see this as communication. We accept this as connection. But at the same time, there is a feeling. There is a longing, a yearning for something we feel we’ve had before or something we feel we deserve, we need. This is because, despite our attempts, the lists mean nothing. We still cannot understand each other. We have only ever been ourselves and that is where our experience lies and so, to us, being ourselves is what it is to be human. To me, Caitlin is human. Caitlin is humanity. Caitlin is my understanding of us as a species. But even so, we can hardly understand ourselves. What a ludicrous thing it is to then suppose we can understand others. What you can’t understand, you can’t really know, and you can’t really be connected with. We are solitary creatures tricked by our bodies into believing otherwise. Nobody can truly be understood or understand. We have different histories and different genes and everything has a mental inflection or fluctuation. Language alone allows for interpretation and supposition and we fill in gaps with assumption and bend words and sounds based on what we know or feel or have experienced. All in all, what we have is just enough to get by. Our emotions get the better of us and we give meaning to even little things. We hold on. We continue to try to communicate, and through that, to connect, and we hold tight the things we feel we have connections with and the things we think represent connections we have with others. This goes beyond physical hoarding associated with OCD and magical thinking and into emotional hoarding and organization and classification of our lives and structures and emotions and all the people we see as involved in these things. So, despite our essential loneliness and separation from each other and the very physical aspects of the world, we continue. It’s all we have, and it’s the closest thing we’ve got to knowing, and knowing, attempting understanding, is the closest we’ve gotten to each other. This search, this longing, this attempt is in every word, letter, and sound. It sits on the curve of every line and balls under every vocalization sliding past our tongues. It’s in everything I say today and all the sentences I’ve ever strung or will string, and when the mufflers of miscommunication are removed, it blares from every keystroke of this document.<br /><br />Please, I want you to know me. I need someone to know me.danceosaurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04978601617121716678noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-6152246218127960062009-10-25T23:09:00.001-06:002010-05-26T16:06:53.884-05:00final drafts of poems for poetry portfolioFoundation<br /><br />Warming instruments;<br />Some play scales,<br />Or gentle runs.<br />We play a single note,<br />The only note,<br />The bass note of our scale.<br />A supporting role,<br />Always playing<br />Only the support role.<br />With their warm up<br />Fast and lacey.<br />And our warm up<br />Slow and strong.<br />Our building up often<br />Ends in an unheard peak.<br />Their prowess is flaunted<br />In flowing technique.<br />While we tubas wait<br />Buried far beneath,<br />But our role immerges<br />Once the true note is needed,<br />For it will not be the top<br />But the bottom that sounds.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Funeral party<br /><br />The dead man had one wish;<br />His funeral was to be happy.<br />Musicians, dancing and plenty<br />Of drinks and drugs to go round.<br /><br />But with their hearts<br />And his body in pieces,<br />No one felt it appropriate<br />To celebrate his demise.<br /><br />Until the priest in ethereal gown<br />Examined the body and announced,<br />‘This man never had a soul,’ relief<br />Spread and the drinking commenced.<br /><br />Permits were attained and<br />Hallucinogens were spread<br />Amongst the living until the dead<br />Joined the crowded dance floor.<br /><br />The dead man began to DJ, playing<br />Songs of the dead layer with the deepest<br />Beats to which the dead dancing the lead<br />And the living pulsed like marionettes.<br /><br />The neighbors ordered the police<br />And the church to end this abomination,<br />But no laws were broken or sins committed,<br />The proper permits had been filed.<br /><br />When the funeral took to the streets<br />neighbors, police and church all joined,<br />Drinks in hand and narcotics in system,<br />Dancing to the dead man’s unholy beat.<br /><br />The dead man began feeding<br />His music into the city’s P.A.,<br />And soon the dance of the dead<br />Stole away the lives of the living.<br /><br /><br />The dead city had only one wish;<br />Their funeral was to be happy.<br />Musicians, dancing and plenty<br />Of drinks and drugs to go round.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Need<br /><br />My shyly uttered stutter<br />Your overwhelming confidence<br />My unexpected reply<br />Your money paying for me<br />My fiercely burning loneliness<br />Our silhouettes intertwining<br />This is why I loved you.<br /><br />My lack of your phone call<br />My veil that couldn’t hide two<br />Your perfectly white suburbia<br />My baby tearing my flesh<br />Your perpetual overtime<br />This is why I needed you<br /><br />My hope for one night of rest<br />My endless shitty diapers<br />Her lilac perfume on your shirt<br />His first word being daddy<br />This is why we left you.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Pieces of Her Life<br /><br />Her cassettes carry<br />Another soul’s story<br />Across time and out<br />Her car stereo leaving<br />Us together listening<br />To a playlist of life.<br /><br />Her music played on empty ears<br />We were busy crafting plans<br />To meet again. These brief moments<br />Were barely enough<br /><br />For me to catch a glimpse;<br />Of her hacked short hair<br />Of her broken smoker’s voice.<br />Lacelike smoke traces<br />Her perfectly flawed self.<br />Her black lined eyes reflecting<br />My own fragmented form;<br />Unkempt ponytail,<br />Comfort clothes still thick<br />With my husband’s cologne.<br />These things do not translate<br />Into phone lines. No. They need<br />To be taken in lifestyle wise.<br /><br />We that kiss forbidden.<br /><br />My one vice in an otherwise<br />Wholesome lustrous life.<br />Beauty of his eye guarded,<br />I stay sheltered from my true<br />Calling; my love that meets<br />Me when he’s a far away.<br /><br />Horizon violated by the sun<br />Signals that our time is up.<br />My children need a mother<br />So with pieces of another’s<br />Life playing over the radio<br />We drive the long minutes<br />Back to the reality of life.shanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13026486399534124573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-47866791614980331762009-10-18T08:45:00.001-05:002009-10-18T08:49:10.536-05:00Essay for Sustainable Development ClassHere's an essay I typed up for my sustainable development class. Any feedback would be appreciated. Enjoy :D<br /><br />We live in a world where people and nature are ceaselessly abused and exploited.<span style=""> </span>An overwhelming amount of people live in absolute poverty and die of hunger and disease. <span style=""> </span>These people are paid less than a living wage, barely surviving in conditions often worse than slavery.<span style=""> </span>They are removed from the lands they have lived on for millennia, displaced by urban development or wilderness preservation sites. Numerous species are going extinct, the rainforest is getting smaller, the desert bigger, and we are spewing toxins into the air, land and water at an alarming rate.<span style=""> </span>We are using such an excess amount of resources that we may soon have nothing left, driving ourselves to extinction. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">It seems obvious that solving these problems should be a top priority, but the system which has the most power to fix the world is the one which is doing the most to destroy it.<span style=""> </span>This system is the dominant global culture of materialism, in which possessions and profits trump all, and it is spreading faster and faster to every corner of the world.<span style=""> </span>It’s a monster which feeds on the worst of human qualities: greed.<span style=""> </span>It’s our insatiable greed which pushes it to grow ever larger, and it sees anything which hinders its growth as a threat; even those who would try and heal the wounds we have inflicted upon our planet are shunned by the powerful and shut out from mainstream media.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Nonetheless, great advances have been made at the grassroots level, depending on generosity and social power instead of greed and economic power. <span style=""> </span>Pro-poor conservation seeks to let endangered environments be maintained by their native inhabitants, who have lived in them symbiotically for ages.<span style=""> </span>Ecological economics seeks to reform the economic systems which have catalyzed materialism so that they recognize human needs other than material wealth as also being significant.<span style=""> </span>Simple living has been advocated as a more fulfilling alternative to the cycle of hyper-consumption that the masses are being herded into.<span style=""> </span>Fair trade has sought to remedy the injustices done to the global south and bring the world into closer solidarity.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Yet the selfishness of those in power, the establishment of materialism, has made its counterattacks to each of these.<span style=""> </span>Environmental protection has been taken up, but in a way that hordes the land as a precious commodity for the wealthy, removing the indigenous peoples to create a pristine wilderness getaway.<span style=""> </span>New ideas and values like ecological economics have been mostly shut out of conventional education by corporate domineered universities.<span style=""> </span>Advertising and consumer culture retains its grip on peoples’ minds, using the farce of overpopulation to cloak the true problem of overconsumption.<span style=""> </span>Fair trade is equally swept aside, kept unfamiliar to the public by the profusion of advertising of unfair goods and kept off of the shelves or overpriced at the typical markets.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Corporate power is a formidable rival, but this power is centralized in the hands of the few.<span style=""> </span>If the hands of the many worked together to topple the greed and selfish of materialism, it is we who would be the giant.<span style=""> </span>But people don’t turn their greed into generosity that easily.<span style=""> </span>It takes a spiritual conversion of sorts to get people to care about more than just themselves. And if all the dominant forms of the media are owned by corporations, how will the people most isolated from these grassroots efforts ever be reached?<span style=""> </span>An understanding of the issues the world faces and the possible solutions to these problems is not so difficult to achieve, but gaining the wisdom of how to shift the world into a new state of being seems nearly impossible.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps it can only be done little by little.</p>Blase Masseranthttps://plus.google.com/113893950861555128192noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-60987100288797535172009-10-15T00:00:00.002-05:002009-10-15T01:12:39.164-05:00Didgeridoo CorollaryTonight Dean Pertl delivered the first event in the Conservatory's World Music Series, a lecture on the history and culture of the didgeridoo. I should apologize, before I go on, that I have been brought to posting nothing more here than glorified lecture notes. I hope they are thought provoking and shouldn't be too long. Also, keep in mind that this is secondhand, recollected gross oversimplification of generalized, compressed information. The ideas should be interesting, though.<br /><br />Apparently one of the Aboriginal Creation myths talks about Creative Spirits walking around the earth and singing the world as it is today into being; if I understand correctly, singing things from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime">Dreamtime</a> (a sort of spiritual combination of the Force and Plato's World of Forms) into "reality." The paths these spirits took during this process are called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songlines">Songlines</a>. The spirits then went back into the earth or went into the sky to live as stars, and left the care of the earth to the Aborigines. This care consists of the singing of songs to "keep the land 'alive.'" "In singing they preserve the land/story/dreaming of their ancestors, and recreate it in their oneness of past, present and future."<br /><br />When the English colonized Australia, and eventually drove the Aborigines from their native lands, this process was prevented, and in an Aboriginal interpretation, this is why the land is dying (there was a noticeable drop in the health of the ecosystems of the Western Desert after all the nomadic tribes there had been removed); the cause of ecological collapse in the world as a whole is because the Songs are no longer sung. <br /><br />Apparently, Dean Pertl once interviewed 60 people, of whom 40 independently described the sound of a didgeridoo as "the sound the Earth would make if it could sing." This would be quite fascinating, if it weren't a quote from something or other, which it seems to be.<br /><br />The other thing of interest, especially to this community, was the discussion of authenticity. It seems that some people in the didgeridoo community in the West insist on using real Aboriginal instruments, mimicking their sounds, and trying to be "authentic" and, I guess, not appear to be stealing real culture and altering it in ways that might seem disrespectful. This is in contrast to the spirit of Aboriginal culture, which is concerned with sounds (so using a plastic instrument instead of one made of wood makes sense if it sounds better) and mimics things in the player's life; for an Aborigine, this would include dingos, kangaroos, etc, but a Westerner living in a city would have an extremely different palate of noises to mimic. <br /><br />There has also been a movement to call didgeridoos (an onomatopoeic name made up by European listeners) by an "authentic" name; however, since they are called different things by different tribes, and since each tribe uses different materials and techniques to construct, no one "authentic" name would describe the whole family of instruments. Any one name (Yirdaki, for example) would be accurately applied to only one particular type of didgeridoo, and wrong for the rest.Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-24476238198588712992009-10-08T23:08:00.003-05:002009-10-09T01:15:27.788-05:00"Under The Earth Tones"Incidentally, to fulfill a college stereotype, I am writing this when I should be 'writing a paper.' I want to capture the fresh impressions. I also apologize that in all of these journalistic reporting pieces, particularly the camping trip journal, I am far more concerned with completeness and recording information than with concision or readability. This is not meant to be the sort of review that would appear in any real publication. It's mostly for me, and for anyone who cares to read my bad writing (hi mom :).<br /><br />This evening, we had an incredible performance that illustrated some of the things I am really coming to enjoy about Lawrence: its cosmopolitanism and, somewhat less tangibly, a sense of play, of living a good life (I am a sucker for language like this, sorry; there is a quote from our former President that says something along the same lines, that at Lawrence the point of education is not learning skills or facts, but learning how live a life). Our Dean of the Conservatory, Brian Pertl, is a trombone and didgeridoo player and throat singer and conch player and etc. He and my percussion teacher, Dane, performed a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Coney_Island_of_the_Mind">piece</a> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Ferlinghetti">Lawrence Ferlinghetti</a> with a theater man and a bass player at convocation. <br /><br />The concert tonight was occasioned by a visit from Pertl's teacher, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Dempster">Stuart Dempster</a>, who fits the same general description. The wikipedia article credits him for introducing the didjeridoo to North America, which is kind of cool. More importantly, though, he is a really vibrant, zany, playful man and this comes through in his playing. <br /><br />When we entered the room, there were trombone players standing all around the edges of the room, scattered among the audience. Dempster stood in the center of the room, and from there introduced the first piece, which he called "Lawrence Trombone Universe." The piece originally had a different name, and was written for a smaller number of trombones to take advantage of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvNDJk8fnMQ">acoustical properties</a> of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Underground-Overlays-Cistern-Chapel-Dempster/dp/B000000R40">Cistern Chapel</a>, an abandoned two million gallon water tank that boasts a 45 second reverberation. Before playing, Dempster had the audience hum an F, and hold that pitch throughout the piece. The trombones were then called in one by one at Dempster's nod as he spun around in a circle. He did this gradually for the entire piece, signaling the musicians to move from one repeated pattern to the next, starting with that F drone, building to a climax with somewhat more motion, and returning to the drone. <br /><br />The next few pieces were done from on stage, with Dempster, Pertl, Dane, and another man playing accordion. The pieces they did were certainly weird, the kind of ambient, improvisatory music that some people like to deny acknowledging as such (music, that is). Some people may have a hard time getting past that, especially reading a review like this, without being able to see for themselves. This kind of music benefits enormously from being heard live, where your concentration is relatively undivided, and the acoustics can take their full effect. More importantly, though, is the sight of the performers and how much fun they are having. <br /><br />There were several pieces in this mold, with Dean Pertl and several trombone students holding drones on didgeridoo while Dempster and the accordion player played over top. Dane had a messy (in the best way) setup, one of those one-man-band style "alternative drumsets." He was sitting on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajon">cajon</a>, which he played with his right foot, had a bell loop on his left foot, and switched around between a <a href="http://www.worldmusicalinstruments.com/c-102-rain-drum.aspx">rain drum</a>, a shaker, and a variety of "toys" from a big suitcase to his right. Dempster switched back and forth between trombone, conch, and his own pile of toys. <br /><br />Another piece, along the same lines, featured Dean Pertl on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungchen">Dungchen</a>. The instrument had been sitting on stage the entire time, about 2 feet high, a big bell with elaborate metal ornamentation. For the piece, he opened it up like a telescope, into 5 sections, as you can see in the picture. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pwL6s-4K_c">This</a> is what it sounds like. He also did some throat singing in this piece. You can hear what most of this sounds like in these <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm_qBwg138A&amp;feature=related">two</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufbMWQBEc_Q&amp;feature=related">videos</a> of Pertl and Dempster. <br /><br />The audience was asked to participate again in the next bit, an ode to a rainforest. We did the old rain trick, starting with rubbing your hands together, snapping, then patting and stomping, while they played droning didgeridoo and made animal noises. IGLU, our Improvisational Group, played with them next, doing what was easily the most abstruse, sparse piece of the night, for those of us who enjoy that sort of thing. Dean Pertl then performed a didgeridoo solo accompanied by Dane. Dane did a tambourine solo (very impressive) while everyone else vacated the stage. <br /><br />The solo was cut off when the lights went out, and 4 glowing eyeballs came on stage, making odd growls and screeches. They came out into the audience, turning on and off sporadically. This last piece was written by Pertl for Dempster's 70th birthday concert, and he constructed the didgerdoos for it himself. I should add that while some of the didgeridoos they played were real wood or bamboo, most of them are the new plastic ones that just look like black pipes. To these were added backlit eyeballs controlled by a switch under the player's thumb. This is probably one of the zaniest things I had seen done in a "classical" context, until the end of the recital. <br /><br />They resumed their normal stage setup after this, and did a final improvisatory piece like the ones before. However, this time, both the accordion player and Dempster got up and first went back and forth, fighting with sounds, circling around chairs and jumping at each other. They snuck back behind Pertl, still seated, and Dempster climbed onto a chair, pointing his bell at Pertl's head. Pertl then stood up, and he and the accordion player fell on the ground and died as the piece ended, with Dempster still frozen, also dead, on his chair. <br /><br />The recital ended with another audience participation thing. Dempster decided to do this on the spot, telling us to take the "happy baby" pose (a yoga position, which he demonstrated) in our minds, and play with noises. He came out into the aisles and barked and growled and interacted in a very silly way with the audience, who responded in kind.Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-81453043326007456312009-10-05T14:35:00.004-05:002010-12-14T00:38:54.298-06:00MerhabaHey everyone, my name's Blase. I've been meaning to post something here for a long time now, but I'm such a perfectionist I had to come up with something good to write first, but I never did. So I'm just typing whatever now just to make sure I don't put it off until eternity.<br /><br />I was an exchange student in Istanbul through Rotary Youth Exchange, I met Adam this summer at a conference and he told me about this blog, so here I am. I am from MI, and right now I am studying International Relations and Diplomacy in Madrid, Spain.<br /><br />I am really looking to start discussing various global and/or social justice issues and build some ideas with people who have the same interests. I'd type more, but my hand is kind of messed up right now for some reason, so instead of finishing my introduction properly I'll leave it as a cliffhanger.Blase Masseranthttps://plus.google.com/113893950861555128192noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3073491339755543756.post-8200447635482247492009-10-03T15:34:00.005-05:002009-10-06T01:19:29.404-05:00LinksHello, everyone.<br /><br />I am in college and am a very busy man. I would very much like to find time to write a journal about this time, and post it for discussion with all of you. However, I haven't found this time yet, and in the meantime, I would like to share a bunch of nice links I have been shown in the past few months.<br /><br /><a href="http://conversations.org/story.php?sid=32">This</a> is an interview with James Turrell, a very interesting light artist. He was referenced by Barry Lopez in About This Life, and so I went looking for information on him.<br /><br />As ever, many of these I found (and am now stealing) from Rachel Leow. She now has a new <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/idlethinkinc/">site</a>, incidentally, that aggregates all of her on the internet.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/all-quiet-on-the-god-front/">This</a> is a short book review that summarizes quite well how I feel about the part "spirituality" - for lack of a better word - should play in our lives. The awe we feel at the Universe sometimes, the astonishment of merely being alive, is a beautiful feeling and something we can and ought to cultivate, but there are no conclusions to be drawn from it. It is incommunicable, an increase in understanding that can not itself be understood rationally. I feel this is important.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/sep/23/sydney-dust-storms?picture=353321059">These</a> are just some nice, very surreal pictures.<br /><br />If any of you are interested in education theory or philosophy, <a href="http://snarkmarket.com/nla/new-liberal-arts.html">this</a> book is an interesting compilation of subjects "important young internet intellectuals" feel are vital to a 21st century Liberal Arts education (which, of course, is the only kind of education worthy of the name ;)).<br /><br />Shane showed me <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/?gclid=COqbqemU75wCFQEhDQodcTCgjw">this radio program</a> a while ago. I haven't listened to many episodes yet, but it is a good popular science kick when that is what you would like. One of the episodes (on Time) included a sample of "<a href="http://www.park.nl/park_cms/public/index.php?thisarticle=118">9 Beet Stretch</a>," Leif Inge's renewal of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. It was electronically stretched to last 24 hours, and is a very interesting ambient noise now. I enjoy listening to it, especially at night.<br /><br />Alex posted <a href="http://seedmagazine.com/portfolio/04_ice.html">this</a> on facebook a while ago; it has samples of about a dozen collections of beautiful photographs, most of them related to science. There are 4 from each set, but they each have links to the photographer's website. They are all exceptional.<br /><br />Some of you know who Courtney Rabideau is; for the others, suffice it to say that she went to school in Cass City with us. However, I don't think any of us ever spent much time with her. She is eminently worth knowing, though, and seems to me a kindred spirit of girls like Sylvie and Rachel (I speak of her as though I actually knew her, which is interesting). I am shocked to realize I never invited her to this blog or my personal one. She has just recently started her own <a href="http://courtrab.tumblr.com/">blog</a>, and I thought perhaps some of you would enjoy reading it.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j40lPFKebWg">This video</a> got forwarded to our percussion studio a few days ago. It is kind of silly pop science stuff, but the last few minutes have some really fascinating high speed footage of a snare drum and a cymbal being hit and vibrating.<br /><br />Here there are horrifically haunting <a href="http://www.yatzer.com/feed_1931_the_dark_celebration_of_gehard_demetz">children</a>, very worth perceiving.Adamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15349789879004879216noreply@blogger.com0